Thursday, September 29, 2016

The Final Results and Report for the 8th Annual Vermont Pumpkin Chuckin' Festival on Sept. 25th, 2016

We
had a gorgeous, sunny, sometimes windy day at the Stoweflake Resort and Spa for
the Eighth Annual Vermont Pumpkin Chuckin' Festival with 18 teams competing in
the chuck, 7 teams in the Chili Cook Off, 43 volunteers and over 1200
spectators enjoying the chuckin, chili, beer, wine, homemade pies, two bands,
face-painting, balloon animals, games and volleyball.Over $8000 was raised for the Lamoille Restorative Center (Hyde Park) whose 23 staff and volunteers did an amazing job
helping with the festival.LRC is doing
great work and it was a pleasure to work with them.

Apparent
Story of the festival: Father and son sweep?

It
seems like the story of the festival was Dave Jordan (that's me, the organizer)
after seven years of failing miserably to fire his trouble prone trebuchet,
finally getting off one good throw. And
an awesome throw it was, especially considering how low I had set people's
expectations. The five pound payload went a record 693 feet (got credit for 689 because of a small weight penalty)
and won the overall Best Design Grand Prize.

Don,
Chris and Ann Jordan (Dave Jordan's father from Palmyra, NY, and aunt and uncle
from FL) formed Team Jordan who had two pity-inspiring throws in the 1st and 2nd round; and then miraculously threw 285 feet
(scaled up to 489) on their last chuck.
They were surprised by the last throw and even more surprised to find
they had won the highly competitive Middleweight Open Division.

Real
Story: Nine year old girl and her dad

Emmerson
Stapleton repeated her utter domination of the Lightweight Division with her
innovative tripod collapsing trebuchet throwing an incredible 200 feet, which
when scaled to Heavyweight would throw 590 feet! (More on “scaling” below). She would have been the first female and the
first Lightweight to win the Best Design Grand Prize in the history of the
eight year festival... if I hadn't had a very lucky, wind assisted, “throw of
my life”. Jonathon Stapleton, Emmerson's
dad, brought a similar design trebuchet to the Heavyweight Division, but the
design seems to be tricky to scale up to that weight. Nonetheless, he threw a very respectable 475
feet, and once he tweaks it he may be a real contender next year.

End
of an era: No more awesome Weapons of
Medieval Destruction

I first
met Nick Helms, builder of Weapons of Medieval Destruction, in 2010 at the
second festival when he showed up in chain mail with his huge over-height,
overweight trebuchet. The next year, in
the pouring rain, his whipper design threw 519 feet (adjusted due to penalties
to 354). He knew his machine was way
over-height and overweight, but didn't care about the penalty, or competing, he
just wanted to inspire other people to build cool throwing machines. He is retiring his whipper and vows to return
in 2017 with a torsion catapult.

I
often get asked why the scaling, height and weight limitations and penalties
are so complicated. The answer is, they
need to be that complicated to make it fair for all competitors. If a trebuchet design is made twice as tall,
it will throw twice as far. This allows
us to directly compare the design of a lightweight, middleweight and
heavyweight by scaling up the smaller trebuchets so they compete on equal
footing with the heavyweights. By
comparing their relative heights, the magic number is roughly 2.9 for the
lightweight and 1.7 for the middleweights.
For example, Emmerson actually threw 200 feet, but because her
trebucheet is a lightweight, it is scaled up to 590 feet. This is how we select the Best Design Grand
Prize. The four winners of each division
are scaled up to Heavyweight size. The
Lightweight winner is scaled up by 2.9, both Middlweight winners are scaled up
by 1.71 and the Heavyweight winner is not scaled. The best “scaled” distance wins the Grand
Prize. So far it has gone to the
Heavyweights 3 times and to the Middlweight Open 5 times.

A
trebuchet must be powered only by gravity, so by limiting the height and
weight, we ensure each competitor starts with the same amount of energy. If they choose to make their frame very
light, they can use more weight in the counterweight, at the risk of breaking
something. It takes more energy to throw
a heavier pumpkin, so the pumpkins must be at, or over, the specified weight to be
legal.

If a
trebuchet is over-height or over-weight, we don't kick them out of the
festival; we allow them to compete with a penalty roughly proportional to how
much they are out of spec. The penalty
isn't really so much a penalty as a proportional offset to correct for the
weight or height advantage beyond the “legal” limits.

The
following summary of each division will show the adjusted distance, after
scaling up including any penalty. If you
want the actual distance, just divide by the appropriate scaling.

Summary
of all competitors (all distances adjusted and scaled up to Heavyweight)

Lightweight
Division: (scaling 2.9268)

1stplace: Emmerson Stapleton (Destroyer), 590
feet

2ndplace: Teresa (TPS Chuckers 2), 209 feet

3rdplace: Gustav (Whippersnapper) 137 feet

4thplace: Owen, (Tomato Tosser), 104 feet

5thplace: Teresa (TPS Chuckers 1), 92 feet

6thplace: Will Johnson, 80 feet

Middleweight
Junior Division: (scaling 1.7142)

1stplace: Pack 607, Tom Knight, (Elastic X)

2ndplace: Steven McCann, (Max Distance), 93 feet

Middleweight
Open Division: (scaling 1.7142)

1stplace: Don Jordan (Team Jordan), 489 feet

2ndplace: Ed Chamberlin (Ooh-rah), 422 feet

3rdplace: Ray Chamberlin (Queen Christine III),
393 feet

4thplace: Bill Wooden (Green Monster), 352 feet

5thplace: Ryan Brown (Redneck Wreckers), 281 feet

6thplace: Bob Olesen, (Wheel of Fortune), 235
feet

Heavyweight
Division: (no scaling)

1stplace: Dave Jordan (Bad Boomer), 689 feet

2ndplace: Chris McGrody (Hammer of the Gourds),
483 feet

3rdplace: Jonathan Stapleton, (The Stick), 475
feet

4thplace: Nick Helms, Weapons of Medieval
Destruction, 265 feet

Chili
Cook Off champions:

The
chili cook off was a great success with seven competitors and running out of
chili before the end of the festival.
Thanks for Keith Thompson for stepping in and running the show. Here are the winners:

First
place trophy and $100 cash: Ken Wasserman (Make Chili Great Again)

Special
thanks to Duffy and Dan McLaughlin for setup and take down, to John Prittie to
helping repair my trebuchet and help Team Jordan fire their winning throw, To
Bruce Wallace and his family for being the Master of Ceremonies and helping for
the last 7 years, to Mike Gladu, Nick Pizzutti and Alyssa for recording keeping
and calculating the winners, to Gunner McCain for quick, cheery distance
readings, to Mike Dunn for excellent sound system and House Dunn and Jen and
John for great music, to Bob Gross and Russell Baum for helping out with safety
and setup for the last 8 years, to Jon Halfcarhalftruck and Aaron Fourier for
running the volleyball challenge, even though nobody challenged them, the
volleyball court was busy all day.

We look forward to our next festival, the 9th Annual Vermont Pumpkin Chuckin' Festial on Sept. 24th, 2017 at the Stoweflake Resort.

If you're looking for a new spectator sport, try Pumpkin Chucking. That's what hundreds of people did Sunday in Stowe.

Wood, metal, or rope -- whatever it takes to chuck a pumpkin the farthest.
"It's not really about the pumpkins. I don't really have a grudge against pumpkins," said Dave Jordan, who started the Vermont Pumpkin Chuckin' festival eight years ago...

These days, the Pumpkin Chuckin’ Festival is good fun for the whole family, even those who aren’t chuckin’. A grand prize is given for best design, which could give nods to helping hands — and add another $50 and first choice of prizes provided by local sponsors to the winning haul. The event also features a volleyball competition, balloon animals, face painting, wine and beer tents, live music and a chili cook-off, a free competition that invites master chili chefs across the county to clash over crock pots for the chance to win a cash prize...